An elementary Hawiian book showed Hawaiian to be excellently consistently head-initial, in word order--meaning that modifiers consistently followed what they modified. If I remember correctly, adjectives came after their nouns, verbs began sentences, etc.

But when I looked at a more detailed description of Maori, it said that Maori does a word-order reversal in negative statements. I was disappointed, because that spoils the neat consistent head-initial word-order.

That wouldn't bother me if someone could tell me why Maori does that word-order reversal. Any suggestions for what movtivated the word-order reversal? Is it to make negative statements easier to recognize, or make them stand out better by the fact that they're said so differently?

Another question: Of course if one is going to be in New Zealand, there's a lot of good reason to study Maori. But let me ask this: Would proficiency in Maori improve someone's qualification for being admitted immigration to New Zealand?

Ok, probably not. But I'd still appreciate any answers (to either or both of my questions).

I guess that there are many thousands of Maoris (surely nearly all) who are fluent in both Maori and English. Therefore it's difficult to imagine how proficiency in Maori could be a valuable qualification for immigrants. What would you say on that questionn?

So: If I want to live in New Zealand, would studying Maori improve my chances of immigrating there?

Unmundisto wrote:Another question: Of course if one is going to be in New Zealand, there's a lot of good reason to study Maori. But let me ask this: Would proficiency in Maori improve someone's qualification for being admitted immigration to New Zealand?

Ok, probably not. But I'd still appreciate any answers (to either or both of my questions).

I guess that there are many thousands of Maoris (surely nearly all) who are fluent in both Maori and English. Therefore it's difficult to imagine how proficiency in Maori could be a valuable qualification for immigrants. What would you say on that questionn?

So: If I want to live in New Zealand, would studying Maori improve my chances of immigrating there?

Unmundisto

Proficiency in Māori will have a negligible impact on immigration, nor would it actually help in daily life very much at all. Most people of Māori descent aren't actually fluent in Māori either.

At the end of the day, the best way to improve your chances of being given a visa is to have one of the skills listed by the NZ immigration service as needed, having a job offer (in a field in which there aren't qualified locals to do it), or having a partner who has either residency or citizenship here.